I am noticing here and there that the WT literature will say things like "One Bible dictionary says ..." or "One scholar says ..." and then proceed with a quotation. My immediate reaction is to ask myself why they didn't provide the specific source of the quote - author, publication, page #, etc. So I am wondering, do other magazines do this? Is it normal?
Is it normal to quote without naming the source like WT does?
by InterestedOne 39 Replies latest watchtower bible
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bohm
in academia, it is a 100% certain way to get graded down. it wouldnt even fly in a weekly hand-in excersize unless you were referencing something trivial.
as for real research, you simply wouldnt get your article published, period.
and citing dictionaries. ughhh. never seen it done before. why the heck would anyone cite a dictionary as an authority on any subject?
leaving out the quotes, the absolutely worst thing the WT does is how it USE quotes. For example: (made up quote)
"According to evolution, whales supposedly evolved from a wolf-like animal. But is that really so? Consider what a fameous palentologist Dr. Doe said: "the evolutionary relationship between many whale-fossils are not well established"[ref]."
WHAT THE HECK DO YOU WANT TO SAY?!
Normally when you write something its because you have an oppinion. The wt NEVER have an oppinion. it has sort of a conclusion, and then it has a bunch of quotes, and the quotes sort of says something, if you look at it the right way, but its not clear what the author of the article really believe.
its such a crappy way to write and i have never seen a real scientist do it. Every article or work has an entire section, the abstract, reserved for writing exactly what he is trying to demonstrate in the article and an outline of the discovery or argumente presented therein. Quotes are allmost never used (why are the relevant?), because it is up to the author who use some scientific work to explain how the work relates to the data and support whatever idea he is trying to advance.
ughh. i dont know what would actually happend if a person tried to do that in academia... i think it would be a sure way to flunk your thesis.
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AnnOMaly
No it's not normal. Normally, even if you were to say 'one scholar/Bible dictionary says,' you'd still put in a footnote or endnote to fully reference the source.
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St George of England
Evidently the Writing Committee have had no formal education.
George
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darth frosty
Appreciated your critique Bohm!
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InterestedOne
So if it's not normal, I wonder why they write that way. Is it just ignorance, or is it intentional?
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NeonMadman
If they gave a citation, you would be able to check the context of the quotation and find out that it doesn't really say what they are trying to make it say. That would never do.
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Ding
One reason may be that if the WTS cited its sources, it would be obvious that it was citing "Babylon the Great" sources as proof of its positions!
In Watchtowerspeak, "one Bible dictionary" sounds better than "the XYZ Church of Christendom's Bible dictionary...."
I remember Ray saying in CoC that he was surprised at how often Fred Franz referred him to Bible dictionaries and commentaries written by non-JW sources that JWs would be forbidden to read or quote from.
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wobble
Exactly N'madman,
Just look back at the threads that analyse the quotes in the "Origins" brochure, they are so blatant in their taking out of context, and most of these are referenced, so you can imagine what hey have done to what "one Bible Scholar says..." etc.
This religion/publishing Corps. was founded on lies and is maintained by lies.
Oh the irony, that many times a week they refer to it as the "truth" !
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bohm
InterestedOne: I think they have realized they need to do it this way. if they had to explain what the works they used really said, and how it related to the argument they wanted to present, it would be very very clear they were not honest, and at least it would be possible to show their argument was false.
by just presenting "naked conclusions" and "naked quotes" and letting the reader supply the meat of the argument and the context, they are in no danger of being shown false, and eventually the reader will learn this is a proper way to argue.
i dont think its all that delibrate... its just something that has grown out of a really bad academic culture. i can hardly imagine its acceptable to use arguments this way in school, certainly not highschool.